


Surely But a Fancy

by wesleysgirl



Series: Sentinel series for Jane Davitt's birthdays [4]
Category: The Sentinel
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-07
Updated: 2010-05-07
Packaged: 2017-11-06 04:20:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/414631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wesleysgirl/pseuds/wesleysgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Jane Davitt's birthday 2010.<br/>Massive thanks to justhuman for her significant beta help, and to bethynyc and thebratqueen for the prompts/inspiration.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Surely But a Fancy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JaneDavitt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneDavitt/gifts).



> Jane Davitt's birthday 2010.  
> Massive thanks to justhuman for her significant beta help, and to bethynyc and thebratqueen for the prompts/inspiration.

"No," Jim says.

It's funny, Blair thinks, how Jim can yell without actually raising his voice. He just has this ability, as natural to him as his enhanced senses, to inject something forceful and inarguable into his words.

Inarguable to other people. Not Blair. Blair can argue with the best of them, and he has perfected the art of arguing with Jim.

"Thirty-five hundred dollars," Blair repeats, slowly so that it can sink in. "Why on earth would we spend that much money if we don't have to? That's -- well, it's a really spectacular vacation, for one thing. Or half of a semi-decent used car."

"You have a perfectly good car," Jim says. "And we just took a pretty nice vacation. We can afford to pay somebody to paint our house."

"But we'd save so much if we did it ourselves!" Blair can't understand the mindset that would allow _that_ much money to be essentially thrown into the trash. They can both climb a ladder and wield a paintbrush -- what more do they need?

"I said no, Chief," Jim says, and turns away like the discussion is over, like they've come to an agreement. Which is also typical.

Blair lets the matter drop for a couple of hours, but he brings it up again over dinner. Sometimes when Jim's got a good meal in front of him he can be a little more mellow about stuff. "What if we split the money? I know you've been wanting some new fishing gear..."

Jim stops with his fork halfway to his mouth. "What?"

"The money we save painting the house ourselves," Blair says. He drums his fingers against the edge of the table, keyed up.

"This again?" Jim sighs. "Listen to me -- we're going to do what everyone else does and pay a contractor to paint the house."

"Are you telling me you can't think of anything you'd like to do with seventeen hundred dollars?"

"That's not the point. We aren't talking about money that's going to fall out of the sky into our laps. I'd rather use my time for -- well, for just about anything other than standing on a ladder painting the house."

"I don't want to argue about this," Blair says. "I just want to do it."

Jim sighs again and sets down his fork. "Why do you care so much?"

Blair shrugs. "I don't know; it just seems like such a waste to pay somebody we don't even know to do something we could do ourselves. I can stand on a ladder and paint a flat surface as well as the next guy."

"And let me guess," Jim says. "You have an idea for what _you_ could do with seventeen hundred dollars."

"Maybe. But that's not the point. I don't care if we just leave it in the bank and _don't_ spend it." He tries to think of the right angle, because there has to be one -- if he can find it, he can make Jim understand. "It's not like we don't have the time. Look, let me start it on my own -- if I can make good progress in a couple of days, you agree to let me finish the project. Deal?"

Jim frowns and stabs another chunk of meatloaf, then points it at Blair. "Two days -- then we re-evaluate."

"Great," Blair says, slapping the table with both hands. He'll just have to do a kick-ass job. "You won't regret this, Jim, I swear."

 

~ * ~ * ~

 

It's not that the idea of painting a house is all that much more appealing than other jobs, even though there is a part of Blair that likes working with his hands. It's just that, regardless of what he told Jim, he's got plans for that money, and those plans aren't for it to line some contractor's pocket.

He gets up early the next morning and goes to the hardware store for supplies -- paint, rollers, tarps and some other stuff the guy at the store swears he's going to find vital but that Blair is convinced he'll be returning for a refund within the next few days because he's not even sure what it's _for_. Maybe Jim would know, but Blair will be damned if he's going to ask. He's going to work as hard as he's ever worked, and Jim is going to be impressed with how self-sufficient he is.

By the time Blair limps his way to the shower that night, he's no longer so convinced. He's got bloody scrapes on both hands, a splinter wedged deep under the nail on his left thumb, and little chips of old paint in his hair. Just scraping the old paint in the places it'd been flaking off had taken a good seven hours, which meant the house now looked even worse than it had before he'd started.

"How's it going?" Jim asks.

"Fantastic!" Blair tries to inject as much enthusiasm into his voice as possible as he slips passed Jim, but Jim stops him.

"You're bleeding."

"It's just a couple of scrapes," Blair says, pulling his hand out of Jim's grasp. "They'll wash clean in the shower."

One of them is still bleeding when he gets out, though. He covers it with a band-aid and then check his hair in the steamed up mirror to make sure he got rid of the paint chips. He's sitting on the edge of their bed with his bedside lamp aimed at his thumb when Jim comes into the bedroom.

"You okay?" Jim asks.

"Yeah. Splinter." Usually Blair has Jim remove splinters, since a sentinel's sharp vision makes it an easier job, but this time he's determined to get it on his own. It's really jammed in there, though, wedged between skin and nail and feeling like it's about ten times bigger than it actually is with the pressure it's creating.

"I can get it," Jim offers, but Blair shakes his head and Jim goes back downstairs to finish whatever it is he's making for dinner. Something with chicken, Blair thinks -- it smells good.

Blair tries to get the splinter out for another ten minutes but succeeds only in making his thumb more and more sore. He goes downstairs when Jim calls up that dinner is ready.

"You get it?" Jim asks.

"Nah. It's okay."

"No, it isn't. C'mere."

Blair sits down in the chair Jim pulls out for him and does his best to ignore Nine, who meows and winds around his feet hopefully.

"He wouldn't do that if you stopped feeding him from the table," Jim says for about the millionth time.

"I know," Blair says.

Bending low over Blair's outstretched hand, Jim examines his thumb closely. "Need the tweezers," he says, and goes to get them. It only takes him about fifteen seconds to do what Blair had spent fifteen minutes failing to do, which doesn't really come as a surprise. "There you go," Jim says, and presses a kiss to Blair's knuckle. "Wash it out good, now."

Blair goes to the sink and douses his thumb with dish soap, then runs hot water over it until it's clean. With the pressure relieved, he can feel hungry. "God, that smells good."

"You've been burning a lot of calories."

He inhales dinner like a starving man, helps with the clean-up, and then goes upstairs and lounges in bed reading a book while Jim takes a shower. The bathroom isn't connected to their room, but the steam makes its way down the hall anyway, the smell of it and Jim's shampoo heavy in the air. Jackie and Rose, mother and daughter, lounge on the bed with Blair, purring contentedly -- every now and then Rose, who is Blair's favorite even though he'd never say so out loud, rubs her head sleepily against Blair's bare toes.

Jim comes to bed, damp with water from his shower. "Cats," he says, and claps his hands. The cats, well-trained, get up and leave the bedroom with what would probably be resigned sighs if they were capable of them.

Blair climbs on top of Jim and straddles him.

"Well," Jim says slowly. "Hello, there."

"Hi," Blair says. Jim is already getting hard against the back of his thigh. "Wanna do it?"

Jim laughs. "What are you, fifteen? 'Do it'?" He grabs onto Blair and rolls them so he's on top, running a hand down along Blair's body. "Yeah, okay. Let's do it."

Blair pouts, just a little bit. "Well, if you don't want to..." He lifts himself onto his knees and Jim grabs him around the waist and pulls him back down.

"I want to," Jim says, leaning up to catch Blair's lips in a kiss. "I always want to with you."

Jim's already naked, and Blair is only wearing a ratty old pair of boxer shorts that Jim wrestles off him in a matter of seconds with such enthusiasm that Blair's kind of surprised the fabric doesn't tear. Doesn't disintegrate and shred like the Incredible Hulk's shirt when he's in Not-So-Jolly-Green-Giant mode -- and you know, it's funny how Blair used to laugh at the car chases and car crashes on that show, thought them unrealistic until he'd met Jim and stepped into a world that didn't seem to lack for explosions or flying bullets.

It's always the big, tough guys who want to get fucked, whether they admit it or not. Well, that's been Blair's admittedly limited experience, at least. He loves rolling Jim over and sliding his dick into Jim's ass, loves the way Jim moans and clenches around him. The only thing that isn't perfect is the scar tissue at the base of Jim's spine, the skin there twisted and reformed into something new, but looking at it makes Blair love Jim even more, if that's possible. Jim's imperfection _makes_ him perfect.

"Love you so fucking _much_ ," Blair gasps, pausing as Jim shudders underneath him. "Jim --"

"Don't stop." Jim lifts his hips a little bit, fucking himself on Blair's cock, and Blair just loses it. He thrusts into Jim wildly, hands clutching Jim's hips tight tight tight until they both come, Blair crying out as he catches his orgasm and Jim moaning into the pillow.

"God," Blair says, trembling and trying to fill his lungs so his oxygen-starved body can recover. "Oh my God."

Jim doesn't say anything, but he's turned his head to the side and is breathing almost as fast as Blair is.

"Okay?" Blair asks. He eases back, a whimper escaping him as his softening dick leaves Jim's body.

"Mm. Yeah. Get down here." Jim grabs onto Blair's wrist and tugs, and Blair collapses onto the bed next to him.

"G'night," he mutters, and Jim chuckles.

"Yeah -- we'll be feeling this for a week."

That gets Blair's attention. "Was that too much?" He slides his hand down along Jim's back until it comes to rest just above Jim's ass, like he'll be able to tell.

Jim shakes his head and kisses Blair's neck. "Nah. Was great."

"Oh. Okay, yeah. Good." He's tired as hell, and a solid night's sleep seems like a necessity just then, so Blair closes his eyes and pretends he's not leaving Jim to sleep in the wet spot, and while he's still listening to Jim shifting around getting comfortable he falls asleep.

 

~ * ~ * ~

 

Climbing up the ladder the next morning, Blair is painfully aware of his diminished enthusiasm for this project. It's not that he thought it was going to be fun, but he sure as hell thought it would go a lot faster than it is so far. He figured by day two he'd be well into the painting part of the job, not still dealing with scraping old paint from around windows. The previous day he started on the ground, so now he's up high dealing with the second story window frames, and wondering if he should deal with caulk before or after the painting. If he does it before, he can cover it up with the paint, but maybe then the paint won't stick to it? Maybe this requires more research than he's done.

The far edge of the frame is a couple of inches out of reach, but Blair is impatient and doesn't want to go back down only to move the ladder so little, so he stretches instead.

That's when the ladder starts to slip, and even though he reaches desperately for the edge of the roof his arms just aren't long enough. The ground rushes up at him fast and feels like cement when he hits it.

 

~ * ~ * ~

 

Jim is sorting through a pile of old mail that he's been trying to ignore when he hears the scrape and then the thud. It isn't a loud noise, but there's something about it that seems off, and Blair doesn't call to him thirty seconds later to explain the sound.

He sticks his head outside and says, "Chief?"

There's no answer.

Tense now, Jim goes outside barefoot and rounds the corner of the house to find Blair and the ladder tangled up together on the ground. Blair is unconscious, but careful listening proves that his heart is beating and he's breathing, so it could be worse. "Sandburg?" Blair doesn't stir, and Jim doesn't want to move the ladder for fear of hurting him, so he quickly goes back inside and calls 911 to request an ambulance.

When he goes back, Blair is already moving a little bit, eyes fluttering open. "Jim?"

"Right here, Chief. Don't try to move -- you might be hurt."

"Jim?" Blair sounds confused and his pupils don't look right when he blinks up at Jim. "Get this off me."

It's clear that Blair will do his best to untangle himself if Jim doesn't help him, so Jim does. "Okay, okay. Let me do it." He gets Blair's foot free of the ladder and lifts the thing off him, dropping it without care to the grass, then kneels on the ground beside Blair. "Stay still. You were out cold for a minute there."

"Yeah, I can tell by the way my head hurts." Blair raises a hand to his head, touches it gingerly, and winces. "Ow. Ow!"

"Leave it alone," Jim tells him, taking the hand and holding it in his own, which feels cold even though the mid-summer sun is shining strongly. "The ambulance should be here soon."

"Oh geez, you called an ambulance?" Blair shifts their hands so that Jim's forearm shades his face from the light. "Ow. God, my head is killing me."

"And that would be why I called the ambulance." Jim can't resist it -- he leans down and kisses the corner of Blair's mouth. Blair's lips give under the pressure of his, soft and slack with surprise. "Jesus, Blair, you scared me."

Blair doesn't apologize, which means he really _did_ get a knock to the head. "You think _you_ were scared? How high up was that, anyway?"

Jim glances toward the roof even though he doesn't need to, which means _he_ really did get a scare. "Eighteen feet? Twenty?"

"Too far," Blair says shakily.

That's Jim's cue to take control of the situation, because one of them has to keep it together here and, not having been the one knocked unconscious, it'd better be him. "Hey, easy. You're okay. We're just gonna have them take a look at you, maybe take a couple of x-rays -- we'll be home in time for dinner."

"Stay with me, okay?" Blair doesn't like hospitals and he likes being left alone in them even less.

In the distance, Jim can hear the ambulance, even though it's still a few minutes away. "I will," he says. "I promise."

 

~ * ~ * ~

 

Jim's estimate isn't far off, but it's still after seven by the time Blair finally gets released from the emergency room. No broken skull, but a minor concussion -- that's not a surprise, Blair could have diagnosed it and he's the one _with_ the concussion. He's been faintly nauseated for the past several hours and wants nothing more than to go home and crawl into bed.

"Home sweet home," Jim says as he holds the front door for Blair.

Blair, who's had more than his fair share of knocks on the head over the years, steps carefully over the threshold so as not to jar his brain. "Bed."

"Right. Go on up and I'll bring you some ginger ale."

Many cultures use ginger medicinally, so it's a taste Blair associates with feeling better even if it's just a placebo effect. Jim keeps a six pack of the organic ginger brew Blair favors tucked into the back of the fridge for emergencies, so a minute later Blair is tucked into bed with a bottle of the cold beverage on the table beside him. "I just want to sleep."

"You do that," Jim agrees. He sits on his side of the bed and holds Blair's hand until everything else fades away but his familiar touch, and Blair eventually drifts off.

The next thing he knows, Jim is waking him up again. "What?" Blair says, irritable.

"Come on, Chief, you've got to wake up. Do you know what year it is?"

"The year I'm going to kick your ass for waking me up," Blair mutters. "Yes, I know, 2010, okay? And Obama is president and I fell off a ladder. Go away and let me go back to sleep."

Jim does, and the next time Blair wakes up it's on his own, slowly and with a lot of yawning that makes his head ache. His brain feels too big for his skull, which it probably is at that moment. He sits up and swings his feet down to the floor, then just stays like that for a long time without moving. He's still half asleep and caught between knowing he should get up for a while and wishing he could just crash again. Eventually, he shuffles his way downstairs.

"You're up," Jim observes.

"Can't sneak anything passed you," Blair says.

"How's the head?"

"How do you think?" Blair's voice is a little sharper than it ought to be, and he sighs. "Sorry. It hurts. I shouldn't take it out on you."

Jim nods understandingly. "Yeah. You want to try for something to eat?"

Blair thinks about it. "I guess I should. Not really hungry, though."

"Ice cream?"

Blair loves ice cream. He isn't picky about flavors -- he likes it all, from Chunky Monkey to mango sorbet, and he's been known to get up in the middle of the night to consume a bowl or two, even in the dead of winter. "We have ice cream?"

"I might have some squirreled away," Jim says.

"I'll give it a shot."

It's hard going even though the rich chocolate almond ice cream tastes good; the cold of it seeps into his fillings and makes his teeth ache, and he can't handle more than a bite at a time. Half a bowl is pushing it, and at that point he slides the bowl aside and tips over on the couch, his head landing on Jim's conveniently placed thigh.

"You'll feel better in the morning," Jim says. His big, familiar hand settles on Blair's head, the weight of it comforting.

Blair doesn't say anything.

"Okay?" Jim asks.

"Mmhm." More than that muffled grunt seems like too much effort.

The TV is turned to a news channel -- Jim maintains a strong interest in anything police or crime related, though he has never admitted as much to Blair -- but the volume is down so it's little more than background noise. Blair lets the sound wash over him, and Jim pats his hair gently. He can taste lingering chocolate in his mouth. Everything has been narrowed to his senses, and Blair wonders if this is what Jim feels like all the time. He doesn't know whether to feel sorry for Jim or jealous of him.

"Chief? Hey." Jim's voice rouses Blair from his daze. "Let's get you back to bed, kay?"

With Jim's arm around him, Blair manages to stumble up the stairs, which are really too narrow for two men to walk comfortably side by side, and curl back up in bed.

In the morning, Blair wakes up alone, sunlight streaming in through the gaps between window frame and shade. He's thinking about getting up when Jim comes into the room. "You," Jim says, in a voice that doesn't permit argument, "are spending the day in bed. The _whole_ day."

"Do I get a bedpan?" Blair asks pointedly.

"You can get up to use the bathroom," Jim says. "If you're _very_ good, I'll even let you take a shower after breakfast. But that's it. The ER doc said you have to take it easy."

"I can take it easy without spending the whole day in bed," Blair says, but it's not a genuine argument -- he can already tell that this is an issue Jim isn't going to budge on.

"But you're not going to," Jim says. "You're staying put if I have to tie you to the bedpost."

"Kinky," Blair says. "I hope you're going to keep me company, at least." His head still doesn't feel right and he'll probably sleep most of the day, but that doesn't mean he won't be bored by lunchtime.

"Stuff to do, people to see," Jim says. He checks his watch. "Breakfast in thirty minutes. Eggs?"

"Sure."

Blair eats his scrambled eggs and toast, drinks his _one_ cup -- which is all Jim will let him have -- of coffee, and spends a couple of hours listening to the radio. The ceiling needs to be painted, he realizes as he's lying flat on his back looking up. The house is old, and there's a crack in the ceiling that runs from the light fixture in the center all the way over to the wall, where it breaks into a few thinner cracks. Thinking about painting reminds him that he's supposed to be painting the house right now. It's a depressing thought because he's pretty sure Jim isn't going to agree to letting him give it another shot, and honestly Blair isn't sure that he wants to spend any more time on a ladder anyway. He really wanted to save them that money -- he had _plans_ for that money.

He sighs and rolls over onto his side, shoving the pillow until it's jammed under his neck. The talk on the talk radio gives way to an hour of jazz that isn't mournful enough to suit his mood, but he can't be bothered to look for another station and just lies there instead. Outside, there's a faint sound that might be Jim mowing the lawn. At least _Jim_ can manage some sort of yard work without giving himself a concussion. Jim's good at everything.

The longer Blair sulks, the darker his mood becomes. When Jim appears with lunch, Blair has to force himself to have a normal conversation -- because otherwise Jim might think there's something wrong physically and insist on taking him back to the hospital, and one visit to the ER during his house-painting extravaganza is more than enough, thank you very much. Jim, being Jim, still suspects something is wrong, but Blair thinks he smiles enough to throw the big guy off the trail.

Jim takes a long shower before dinner, then goes out to pick up food from Blair's favorite Chinese place. Of course, Blair doesn't realize that until Jim calls him to the table.

"I thought I wasn't supposed to get up!" Blair calls back.

"Shut your mouth and get down here, Sandburg!" Jim yells.

Blair obeys. "You got Chang's." He's surprised, and annoyed that he's surprised, and annoyed that Jim is always the one doing things for him. Jim's the fucking _guy_ in this relationship, rescuing Blair from himself, and it's so _unfair_. Blair just about kills himself -- literally -- trying to do something nice for Jim, and Jim's the one who gets it right by simply jumping in his truck and driving across town to get take-out.

He can't manage much in the way of conversation during the meal, but it isn't until he's pushing the last couple of bites around on his plate, not quite ready to return to his isolation, that Jim says, "So what's going on?"

"What?" Blair blinks at him. "What could possibly be going on? I've been in bed all day."

"I mean _in your head_ ," Jim says.

And Blair, suddenly weary from a good week of shoving the idea around in his head the same way he shoved the leftovers around with his fork before he'd even gotten to the point of suggesting that he'd paint the house to Jim, lets his hand fall to the table. The edge of his fork clips the edge of his plate on the way down in a sharp, clinking noise that makes Jim wince. "Sorry. I just -- I had this idea. It was stupid, okay?"

"It might be okay," Jim says, with more patience than Blair would feel were their positions reversed, "but I can't say for sure until you explain what the hell you're talking about."

"I had plans for that money." Blair hesitates, gets up, and goes to the coat tree and the inside pocket of his jacket, where he's got a print-out folded up into a little wad. He brings it back to the table and tosses it down in front of Jim. "There. It's all screwed up now anyway."

Jim picks up the folded square and smooths it out. Looks at it. "Chief?"

"It would have made a solid down payment," Blair says defensively. It's a nice fishing boat -- secondhand, sure, but not old, and it closely resembles a few that Jim has waxed poetic about over the past few years.

"You were gonna buy me a boat." Jim seems stunned.

" _We_ were going to buy _us_ a boat," Blair says, even though the second half of it isn't strictly true. Sure, he'll go fishing with Jim, but mostly because it's one of the times Jim's guaranteed to be in his element, relaxed, happy. It isn't because he loves fishing -- it's because he loves Jim.

"Chief... Blair..." Jim looks at him helplessly, at a loss for words.

Part of Blair is expecting to hear that it _was_ a stupid idea. The rest of him, obviously the smarter part, knows Jim wouldn't say that. There are times when Jim rakes him over the coals, yeah, but they're times when Blair deserves it.

"That's -- thanks." Jim stands up and comes over to him, then pulls Blair into a rough hug and talks into his hair. "Thank you."

"It didn't work," Blair reminds him. Jim's collarbone is kind of crushing his nose. "Jim."

"That doesn't matter." Jim pulls back and frames Blair's face with his hands, looking into his eyes with such warmth and affection that Blair is reminded, in a sudden rush, why he's here. It isn't so he can save them a few thousand dollars by painting a house, and it isn't so he can provide Jim with someone to rescue. It's not so he can cook for Jim, or do their laundry, or make sure Jim doesn't blow off his yearly physical. It's this -- the connection between them, the deep, unshakable faith that they're bound by something bigger than themselves. "God, Chief -- no more ladders, okay? I know your head's pretty hard, but I don't think my heart can take any more scares like that."

And Blair, who knows what's important and what isn't, wraps his arms around Jim's waist and smiles at him. "Okay," he says. "No more ladders."

They'll figure out about the boat later. Together.


End file.
